Archive for January, 2013

A local model and producer are bringing together two staples of American culture — beer and swimsuits — in an effort to spotlight Toledo for a possible national advertising campaign.

Cory Rist recently coordinated and posed for a photo shoot that was sponsored by the brewers of Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) beer. The session took place entirely on location at the Bartley Lofts in Downtown Toledo.

Rist, who also runs her own interior decorating company called Simply Put Life, said the catalyst of the photo shoot was a celebrity birthday party.

“Back in October, one of the owners of PBR contacted me and invited me to an event they were doing at the Playboy mansion for Snoop Dogg’s birthday,” Rist said. “They also own Colt 45, which is partnered with Snoop. They were basically throwing him a birthday party with PBR. I flew out there for the weekend.”

While she was there, she met the PBR owners’ girlfriends, one of whom owns Éclairée in New York City. During the meeting, Rist was asked if she would like to do a photo shoot modeling one of Eclairee’s swimsuits.

“I mentioned that I had a photo shoot coming up with a local photographer and it wouldn’t be a problem. I already had a shoot scheduled for pictures of my son and I. So, then my friend from PBR asked if I would shoot some of their product, as well. He offered to sponsor the shoot, if I was willing to do that,” Rist said.

Rist agreed, believing that Toledo is more representative of the Pabst brand than other larger cities. Pabst then sent a variety of items to be used for the photo shoot.

“I actually have a skateboard they sent me. It’s so cool. It’s a longboard, and it actually has a beer bottle opener on the bottom,” Rist said.

Rist then began putting her production skills to work, and sought out local businesses to take part in the shoot.

“I put a team together to help, because I know there’s a lot of talent here in Toledo,” Rist said.

She asked Natalie Pohorecki if she was interested in doing the makeup. Pohorecki is an award-winning makeup artist who hosts the “Makeup Monday” and “Trendy Toledo” fashion segment on WNWO. She agreed to get involved with the PBR shoot, and explained a bit about how she was able to contribute to the project.

“I was the makeup artist and clothing stylist on location for the day. I did airbrush makeup to give Cori a perfect glow,” Pohorecki said. “We kept her makeup modern and classy. I pulled clothes from a few local boutiques, as well as from Cori’s own wardrobe, to add to what PBR sent us.”

Local photographer David Sprott took charge of shooting the pictures while Omar Khan recorded and produced a video of the process, which can be viewed on Facebook. Additionally, Phillip Kaplan shot behind-the-scenes photos and Ali Gallaro from Salon 180 styled Cori’s hair.

Rist said she is unsure how the photos will be used by PBR once they receive them, but is hopeful they will gain a lot of exposure. Rist also noted that PBR tends to have a strong social media presence and suggested that the photos could possibly be used for that, as well.

Following the photo shoot, Rist and the crew decided to hold a contest to help PBR get some local exposure.

“We thought it would be fun for Toledo to see one of their favorite beers being shot in their hometown,” Rist said.

The contest is currently being hosted on Facebook (“PBR Toledo Swag — Contest Page”), and challenges locals to post their best pictures of themselves enjoying PBR. The contest will run through Feb. 10, with two winners — one male, one female — to be announced. The winners will receive “swag packs” from PBR. Entrants must be at least 21 years old to be eligible to win.

Rist added that the PBR skateboard will not be up for grabs, and that no actual beer will be given away, “because it’s illegal, or something silly like that.”

A repeat bank robber was flabbergasted recently when police busted him on a Downtown Toledo sidewalk minutes after his latest heist.
The robber, disguised in clothes different from those he wore to the robbery, had no idea his getaway plan had been cracked by detectives. To solve the caper, the Toledo Police Department (TPD) used clues obtained from images recorded by crime cameras installed last year as part of the department’s Observation Research Intelligence Operations Network, known as Orion. Those cameras are the most visible aspect of Orion, launched by Chief Derrick Diggs as part of an overall data-driven policing strategy. The price tag for Orion was about $1.5 million, of which $820,000 was paid for out of the police department’s Law Enforcement Trust Fund, money obtained from assets seized from criminal enterprises.

On Jan. 29, Toledo City Council approved a request by the police department for an additional $380,000 in capital improvement funds for the second phase of Orion. The additional funds are slated for the purchase and installation of advanced software to create a unified data warehouse and sweeping information network that will reach from the police cruisers on the streets to the entire department and even provide intelligence to surrounding law enforcement agencies, said Capt. Michael Troendle of the TPD Criminal Intelligence Section. Troendle estimates the total cost of phase two at $500,000, but noted that police still have $120,000 from the initial funding earmarked for software.
The idea is to build one major server that can be mined by police more efficiently, according to Troendle, a 20-year department veteran. The second phase of the Orion project will focus on creating a central system out of the disparate networks now accessed by police, including the NORIS criminal background database, 911 call center data, vehicle-mounted license plate readers and mobile data terminals. In addition, a number of internal databases, for example, gang activity, would be merged.
Troendle said the upgrades and improved computer networking will help his police analysts discover “hidden trends” in local crime. The improvements are also intended to bring a significant time-savings to the work of the Criminal Intelligence Section. Sgt. Scott Sterling, who works under Troendle, said the updated system could conceivably reduce a shift-long search of multiple databases to a single click of the mouse. The Criminal Intelligence Section currently employs four police officer analysts, one sergeant, and Troendle, who reports directly to Diggs. The unit was beefed up a year ago to meet the demands of bringing Orion online. But Troendle said his team, judging by industry standards, remains understaffed like the police department in general.Fundamentally sound
City Councilman D. Michael Collins, who chairs the Public Safety, Law and Criminal Justice committee and voted in favor of the second phase of Orion funding, said the use of the cameras is a “fundamentally sound” concept, one that “certainly enhances the ability of a police department to function.” However, Collins stresses that the cameras will “never be a replacement for officers on the street.” And the councilman seemed to bristle at the “real time” label given by police to their camera monitoring operation, noting the cameras are only monitored during business hours and then only by one officer at a time during staggered one-hour shifts.
Troendle confirmed that monitoring schedule, explaining how his analysts are tasked with more than just watching TV. Those officers must also do a great amount of data entry to keep the computer files up to date, in effect justifying that “real time” label. It is difficult for someone to stare at video screens for a protracted time without a change of pace, Troendle said.
Still, all the cameras are recording all the time. The images are stored for 14 days before being erased, Troendle said. Any video that becomes evidence in a criminal matter will be stored “forever,” he said.
Besides monitoring images from the cameras, the Criminal Intelligence Section is responsible for generating crime analysis reports every two weeks. Those reports are given to the department’s watch commanders during biweekly briefings that typically last a couple of hours, said Public Information Officer Sgt. Joe Heffernan.
The data contained in those reports is intended to help commanders refine their patrols and deploy their resources efficiently.
“Random patrol doesn’t work,” said Troendle, who during his career also served four years on the department’s SWAT team. “When we were on SWAT, we were always looking for this [kind of] information,” he said.
Criminal Intelligence also issues four to five bulletins a week to all personnel and to neighboring law enforcement agencies. Troendle said Toledo police with Orion have created “unprecedented knowledge-sharing.”Sky cops

There are currently 73 cameras operating at 37 locations around the city, and nine more cameras in the process of being deployed. The computer-programmable cameras are remote-controlled from police headquarters, can swivel 360 degrees and have a 36x zoom. Some are equipped with infrared capability to “see” in the dark. In general, the cameras have been placed at crime hot spots, Troendle said, although some camera locations were selected with an eye toward protecting infrastructure.
The cameras, branded “sky cops” by the manufacturer, were purchased from Executive Security International (ESI), a Memphis, Tenn.,-based firm. Troendle had praise for the company despite what the captain called a “miscommunication” that has delayed the delivery of another component of Orion, namely, seven “gunshot cameras,” which come equipped with microphones that enable police to determine by triangulation the precise location of a shooter within seconds. Troendle expects to take delivery of those cameras in February. “The goal is to catch the guy shooting,” he said.
The TPD also has a pair of mobile sky cop units. Those trailer cameras were deployed near Westfield Franklin Park and along the Monroe Street corridor in West Toledo during the holiday season and were a big success, Troendle said.
The trailer cameras, easily identified by their flashing blue lights and police logo, deter car break-ins, car thefts and other crimes, he said.Reducing crime?
Troendle took issue with detractors who claim the cameras do nothing more than displace crime, resulting in the bad guys committing their misdeeds in some other neighborhood where cops aren’t watching.
The police captain said the pole-mounted cameras are capable of being redeployed at any time to another location. But Troendle, who holds a master of science degree in criminal justice with a concentration in crime analysis from Tiffin University, was keen to explain that the number of crimes deterred by the cameras can be expected to be significantly greater than the number of any “displaced crimes” that may occur elsewhere.
And that results in a net reduction of crime, he said. The reasoning is that the factors which contribute to crime — a suitable target, a motivated offender and the lack of a suitable guardian are not equally distributed everywhere. Not every time a criminal is thwarted by the presence of police cameras is he going to find, and act on, some other unguarded target, Troendle said. He also emphasized that the benefits of deterrence typically extend beyond the actual area targeted by the cameras, constituting another multiplier of the technology’s effectiveness.Burglaries, thefts down
Indeed, police spokesman Heffernan provided statistics he said confirm the efficacy of the cameras. Burglaries and thefts from cars were both down 22 percent last year compared to 2011, Heffernan said, with auto thefts down 5-percent. In raw numbers, those three types of crime saw a decrease year to year from 11,931 incidents in 2011 to 9,499 in 2012.
Heffernan credits the cameras and the overall data driven strategy being implemented by police for the reduction in those crimes. Statistics on the number of burglaries over the past four years, for example, show a significant reduction in 2012, the year Orion came online. Whereas there were 8,064 burglaries in 2009, 7,287 in 2010 and 8,366 in 2011, those crimes decreased to 6,490 last year, Heffernan said.
Data-driven policing means tracking crime series, tracking offenders and building predictive analysis models on the basis of computer software algorithms, Hefferman said. The intelligence is used to better deploy police resources.
The numbers are proof that data-driven strategy is having an impact, Heffernan said, doubly so because those reductions were achieved “with a record low number of manpower.”
Heffernan stressed that the system is still new and the police department is still fine-tuning it, even as more upgrades are coming in. For that reason he believes there will be even better results in the future. “I don’t think we’ve realized 100 percent of the benefits,” he said.
As for manpower levels, Heffernan noted the current academy class will be training on the streets this spring, with another class to enter the academy in the fall. Looking toward 2014, he said the department is finally starting to “get our manpower numbers where they need to be.”Staffing levels
City administration spokesperson Jennifer Sorgenfrei last week echoed that sentiment when she said police staffing would be at around 600 officers by year’s end, a figure she characterized as a stated interim goal of Mayor Mike Bell.
But Collins said he expects department staffing to further lose ground over the course of the year. The councilman noted the 40-strong academy class won’t quite offset the some 44 expected retirements, and the 50 new October recruits won’t hit the streets of the Glass City until 2014. In the meantime, Collins, a retired police officer, said Toledo’s current ratio of cops to citizens is the lowest of any comparable city nationwide and significantly below industry recommended staffing levels.
Orion’s phase two also marks the beginning of an ambitious plan to fully integrate into the system the mobile data terminals in the police cruisers. Calling this level of technology “cutting edge,” Heffernan said eventually officers behind the wheel of their cruisers would be able to live stream video images from sky cop cameras.
While he supports Orion, Collins said, “I’m not naive to believe this is going to be the sole answer to what’s going on today.” He said there is no policing model that is superior to “beat integrity” which, he explained, means “officers are held accountable for crimes in that area.”
In Collins’ view, the lack of manpower and the volume of police calls have combined to reduce beat integrity. “Today they go call to call to call,” he said referring to officers on patrol.
Troendle, who was tasked with updating the department’s sector and beat map in 2009, agreed that remote-controlled cameras could not replace officers on patrol. But Troendle, who ultimately reworked the city police map into an eight-sector grid that strives to balance activity among all 16 assigned beats, made it clear the department was “still covering our beats.”
Further down the road, Troendle foresees a doubling of the current number of sky cop cameras to around 150 throughout the city. “We’re trying to stop victimization,” he said.
As for the advanced software and the installation know-how police are now seeking, Troendle said it will likely come from a provider like IBM, Microsoft or other major corporation. ESI does not supply it, he said.
Troendle said he expects to have the proposals for Orion’s phase two in hand around the middle of February.

During his Jan. 28 State of the City speech, Toledo Mayor Mike Bell announced he will run for re-election this fall. Reaction from Democratic foes was swift and dismissive, indicative of what will undoubtedly be a heated attempt to hinder Bell’s progress.I have confidence that Bell can fulfill his responsibilities to the city while navigating the distractions. But I fully expect his opponents to do their best to hinder his efforts, sacrificing the city’s gains for their personal ambitions.
As I have asked before and will repeat: There are still many months to go, but if the election took place next week, what arguments are there against Bell retaining his office? Bell has reached out to surrounding communities with an eye on cooperation and inclusion. His administration has put (contested) money back in the rainy day fund, arranged for a class of police officers and helped accommodate the smooth opening of Hollywood Casino Toledo, the city’s biggest development investment in a very long time.
Bell’s efforts to chisel out a place for Toledo on the global stage will have decades of continuing impact. His latest trip, a late-November visit to China, was another marketing and exposure success that further cultivated the seeds of commerce he has been planting on the international stage.
In his Jan. 28 speech, Bell acknowledged some of the missteps his administration has made; such concessions are rare in politics and indicative of Bell’s growth as a leader. Try to think of similar mea culpas ever being issued by any of Bell’s public servant opponents.
There are those who are ready to combat Bell over his 2010 use of exigent circumstances to cut city workers’ wages and his 2011 support of Senate Bill 5, which would have restricted public employee collective bargaining; even though their side “won” the latter battle, they would advance that ideology over what is best for the city’s momentum.
I have questioned and criticized some of Bell’s budget decisions and continue to be concerned about some of the communication issues between Bell and City Council. But those publicly acknowledging their interest in the mayor’s office seem to be much more interested in their own advancement than in what is best for Toledo.
Bell has restored dignity and action to an office that was sorely lacking both. His challengers will need a lot more than the same old rhetoric and misguided ambition to take a serious shot at silencing his voice. The state of the city is stronger than it has been in a long time, and while there have been bumps along the road, much of that progress can be attributed to Bell’s steady leadership.

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Contact him at tpounds@toledofreepress.com.

It’s fashionable to bash and disavow television, as if most people are seated in their study, a crackling fire providing counterpoint to the NPR on their earbuds and the David Foster Wallace novel in their well-manicured fingers.

But with hundreds of stations available and boutique channels catering to every interest from cooking to travel to science-fiction movies featuring airplane-eating sharks and bridge-destroying squids, television is an indispensible center of entertainment.
My wife and I limit the amount of television we allow our 4- and 6-year-old sons to watch. The routine of getting them to bed, making their school lunches for the next day and keeping our home in order limits the amount of television we see, but there are some shows we try to catch and a few we never miss.
Thank you, DVR. I know there are more important modern inventions than the digital video recorder (defibrillators, cake pop machines, chemotherapy, USB flash drives), but few that are as convenient on a daily basis. The DVR comes in particular use on Sundays. At 9 p.m., PBS shows “Masterpiece Classic: Downton Abbey” at the exact same time TLC shows “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.”
Your reaction to the titles of those two programs is a Rorschach test of your pop culture tastes. People react strongly to both shows, often despite the fact that they have never seen five minutes of either one. Some people wrinkle their noses at “Downton Abbey” as if it were a plate of marmite-soaked toast; some people wrinkle their noses at “Honey Boo Boo,” as if it were a plate of scrapple. Odds are, such people have not tried “Abbey,” “Boo Boo,” marmite or scrapple, but that does not stop them from expressing their critical disdain. Both shows are the best of their genres and compelling entertainment.

“Downton Abbey,” created by Oscar-winning writer Julian Fellowes, follows the aristocratic Crawley family in their magnificent castle estate, telling their story through their lives and through the eyes of their large group of maids, footmen, cooks and servants. The story began with the sinking of Titanic and has followed the family for nearly a decade during the course of three seasons. The sterling cast includes Hugh Bonneville as Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, Elizabeth McGovern as his wife Lady Cora and Michelle Dockery, Laura Carmichael and Jessica Brown Findlay as their three daughters. Other cast highlights include Maggie Smith as Robert’s mother Violet the Dowager Countess, Dan Stevens as reluctant heir Matthew Crawley and Jim Carter (Carson), Brendan Coyle (Bates) and Phyllis Logan (Mrs. Hughes), key members of the staff.
The show is deliberately paced, heavy on melodrama, written with a refined sense of wordplay and acted with an impeccable human touch. It requires and rewards patience and a long memory. As in a carefully plotted novel, events tend to echo and themes repeat as the drama unfolds.
“Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” on TLC, which at one point stood for The Learning Channel, follows the family of Alana “Boo Boo” Thompson, a 7-year-old rural Georgia girl who competes in child beauty pageants. Her family, June “Mama” Shannon, father Mike “Sugar Bear” Thompson and three sisters (nicknamed “Pumpkin,” “Chickadee” and “Chubbs”) are crude, self-proclaimed “rednecks” characterized by one reviewer as “a horde of lice-picking, lard-eating, nose-thumbing hooligans,” a fairly accurate if understated description.
On “Honey Boo Boo,” Alana is shown preparing for pageants by drinking her mother’s “Go Go Juice,” a mix of Mountain Dew and Red Bull,” and eating plate after plate of “sketti,” which is pasta covered in a sauce that consists of a bottle of ketchup and nearly a full tub of butter blended in a microwave. Each child in the family has a different father, and exhibits behavior that should horrify and revolt even the dimmest parents. The principals of the show speak with such thick Southern accents (often through mouths full of junk food or devoid of teeth), that nearly all of them are subtitled. It is impossible to defend the pretext of the show, though it is open to debate whether watching it makes the viewer complicit in the family’s self-propelled exploitation.
The “Downton” and “Boo Boo” families may be a century, an ocean and cultures apart, but they have many things in common. Both feature a patriarch overwhelmed by smarter and more powerful women, although “smarter” is a relative term when it comes to Boo Boo’s family. Both clans deal with financial issues, social competitions and single-parent babies (although those babies arrive at their status through polar-opposite circumstances). Both families have ongoing sister rivalries that add tension and sometimes humor.
The shows may be wildly divergent in intent, but the one element that unites them — fact vs. fiction, scripted vs. reality — is the clear and unconditional love each family has for its members. That is a strong element missing from a lot of entertainment, whether it features stiff upper lips or red necks.
Both programs are immensely entertaining while evoking antipodal emotions. “Downton” is intellectually rewarding and raises the bar for television drama. “Boo Boo” redefines “guilty pleasure” and lowers the bar for “reality” programs, a genre digging new nadirs with alarming speed. But “Boo Boo” is no more responsible for the crumbling of civility than “Downton” is responsible for preserving the last few atoms of societal dignity. Both shows are mere reflections: “Downton” one of British nostalgia, “Boo Boo” one of American dissolution. Watching “Downton” doesn’t make me a better human being. Watching “Boo Boo” doesn’t make me a worse one.
Writer Harlan Ellison, responding to the notion that television sucks, said television doesn’t suck; it is sucked. It is a glass teat from which viewers draw the nutrition — or poison — they seek. Whether your palate prefers the fine cream of “Downton Abbey” or the sour lemon of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” it’s a testament to the art that you can pick your sweets — or your poison.

Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star. Email him at mmiller@toledofreepress.com.

Hollywood Casino Toledo Executive Chef Brian Hein will soon debut “the next evolution” of Final Cut Steak & Seafood’s menu, adding a new variety of premium steak as well as cod and lobster dishes, appetizers and more.

Hollywood Casino Toledo Executive Chef Brian Hein and his team have developed several new menu items for Final Cut Steak & Seafood. Toledo Free Press Photo by Joseph Herr.

“It’s phenomenal,” said Hollywood Casino Toledo Director of Food and Beverage Marc Guastella of the new menu. “When we opened I think our product was outstanding, but this is really going to take it to the next level.”
The most significant change is the addition of American Wagyu steak, Hein said.
“It’s what I like to refer to as beef butter. It melts in your mouth,” Hein said. “Its rating (on a scale of 0 to 10) is 10-plus. That’s as high as you can get. It really represents [a tiny percentage] of the cattle in America. Obviously it’s not a steak you’re going to eat every other night, but to experience it is certainly a treat. If you have the opportunity and you’re a beef fan, I would strongly recommend coming in. It’s quite spectacular.”
American Wagyu is known for its high marbling content, which makes it extremely tender, rich and flavorful, Guastella said.
“We’re excited. This makes us very unique. There’s really not many restaurants that offer that grade of meat,” Guastella said. “You can cut through it with a butter knife. It’s that tender and the flavor is outrageous. It’s just phenomenal steak.”
Final Cut will now offer three tiers of steak: Midwestern corn-fed steer, USDA Prime and American Wagyu.
“We’ve got three levels, which is very unique because a lot of steakhouses have at most two levels of beef,” Guastella said. “To have three levels is incredible and really gives guests at all price points the option to enjoy it.”
American Wagyu will be offered as a 12-ounce Kansas City Strip for $96, a 10-ounce Top Cap Ribeye for $89 or a 5-ounce Top Cap Ribeye for $45.
The meat will come from Idaho-based Snake River Farms, which supplies beef to many well-known high-end eateries, including California’s The French Laundry and “Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto’s eateries.
Another new entrée at Final Cut is the Georges Bank Cod, cooked with Asian noodles in a tagine, an earthenware pot with a cone-shaped lid commonly used in Mediterranean cooking.
“This is a bit unusual because we’re preparing this cod dish in a tagine with Asian fusion in a steakhouse, so we pretty much travel the whole world right there in that one dish,” Hein said, laughing. “The last step is to interject a little bit of applewood smoke into the tagine. Then at the table, you pull off the top and the smoke perfumes right in front of you and just jump starts your senses.”
Cioppino — a seafood stew featuring shrimp, scallops, mussels and crab in a tomato-based broth — is another new entrée.
“The cioppino we actually ran as a special and it was so successful we decided to put that on the menu,” Guastella said. “Especially in the wintertime, there’s nothing better.”
A lamb shank, featuring cipollini onions, wild mushrooms and port wine, is also a classic winter dish, Guastella said.
“The meat just falls off the bone,” he said. “It’s a very rich braised item, perfect for cold weather.”
A Maine Lobster entrée, featuring a one-and-a-half-pound lobster filled with Thermidor stuffing, is also new.
Perhaps the most surprising new appetizer is tater tots.
“We like to have a little fun with our appetizer section,” Hein said. “We pulled out of some of the traditionalist thinking and one of the items we’re putting on there is homemade tater tots. This is an adult version obviously, but we make them from scratch and we present them with homemade jalapeño jam, a mornay sauce and pork crackling from Tank’s Meats in Elmore.”
Another new appetizer is roasted bacon, artisan-cured by Tank’s Meats and featuring a maple glaze, arugula pesto and Russian dressing.
“The Russian dressing is a little bit different,” Hein said. “We put it on an anti-griddle, which is extremely cold, and it actually freezes. That’s how we put it on the plate. Then over the course of eating it, it begins to thaw and gives just a little bit of texture on the plate.”
Other new appetizers include carpaccio, a yellowtail snapper in a grape and leek emulsion, and a lobster chowder, which will replace the lobster bisque.
Sorbet, used to cleanse the palate between courses, is also new.
“We’ll be playing around with flavors, but the ones we have now are pomegranate lime, green tea ginger and lemongrass honey,” Guastella said.
Guastella and Hein said they pride themselves on offering something for everyone.
“We feel like guests are going to be very pleased not only at the quality of the product, but also at the eclectic nature of the menu,” Guastella said. “Our menu is packed. We have very affordable options, but also high-end exclusive options. I doubt there’ll be any option for a guest to say there’s nothing on there that they like.”
For more information, visit hollywoodcasinotoledo.com.

After it came to light that two Medal of Honor recipients had been inadvertently omitted from a Lucas County Courthouse plaque listing honorees with local ties, plans are under way to replace the plaque.
The Lucas County Commissioners recently agreed it would be appropriate to replace the plaque, said Commissioner Carol Contrada. Other options considered included modifying the current plaque or installing a second plaque next to the first, she said.

The current Medal of Honor plaque at the Lucas County Courthouse. Toledo Free Press Photo by Sarah Ottney.

“We cannot honor our veterans often enough and the people who have given their service to our community — given their lives to our country in many cases — deserve to be honored and remembered by their communities and by the county,” Contrada said. “This is completely the right thing to do. It is the right thing for all of us to do to remember.”
The current plaque, located on the second floor of the Lucas County Courthouse, was dedicated in 2003 during Ohio’s bicentennial and lists 16 names.
The two missing names — Civil War veteran Christian Albert, who died and is buried in Toledo, and World War II veteran Hulon Whittington, who died in Toledo — were brought to the attention of the commissioners in 2011 by Nick Haupricht. Haupricht is chairman of Remembrance Inc., a local group dedicated to building and refurbishing war memorials in Northwest Ohio.
Haupricht also lobbied for removing the name of Civil War veteran Charles Thompson, who was born in Wood County and appears to have had no connection to Lucas County.
“He is a passionate historian and researcher,” Contrada said of Haupricht. “He brought it to our attention that there were people missing and that someone was on the plaque that shouldn’t be and we immediately tried to figure out what we could do.”
Haupricht, a Vietnam War veteran, said he feels strongly about making sure memorials are accurate and all veterans are honored.
“I’m just trying to get the memorial corrected so our fallen comrades have their names somewhere,” Haupricht said. “It’s important to get things right.”
The historical research process was lengthy, but vital, Contrada said.
“It was frankly surprising that we had something of such permanence that missed two winners,” she said. “We decided the best thing to do was make it right. The historical work was really important. We had to doublecheck names, births, burials, places of enlistment. My opinion is it’s better to be right than fast.”
Contrada said there was some hesitation about removing Thompson’s name, particularly out of concern he would not be honored anywhere else. At the time, Wood County did not have a Medal of Honor memorial. In November, Wood County dedicated a Medal of Honor memorial that includes Thompson’s name, so the commissioners now feel comfortable removing his name from Lucas County’s plaque, Contrada said.

“We don’t know how Charles Thompson ended up on the Lucas County plaque except that, the farther back in time you go, the more difficult it is to have complete and accurate records,” Contrada said. “But now he is honored in the appropriate geographic location and we can move forward.”
The new plaque will list 17 Medal of Honor recipients who served from the Civil War to World War II who were born in, livedin , entered service in, died in or were buried in Lucas County.
The plaque will be made of bronze and cast by Toledo-based Architectural Arts. It will be paid for by the Lucas County Commissioners miscellaneous fund, Contrada said. The new plaque is expected to cost about $3,800.
“We’re very, very enthusiastic about this project,” said Contrada, who estimated the plaque would take three to four weeks to complete once ordered. “I’m looking forward to it being completed and having the record of some really great people from Lucas County corrected.”
Haupricht said he was hoping the new plaque would include more description of the actions leading to each recipient’s Medal of Honor. Contrada said that option was considered, but adding so much text made the metal plaque difficult to read. The commissioners instead plan to display supplementary information about the honorees in a matted frame near the plaque.
“That’s something Fulton County did, which is really cool, and that’s what we plan to do here,” Contrada said. “That way, if people have time and want to linger, they can read fairly detailed descriptions of the recipients. It really is very interesting and I think honors these gentlemen even more.”
Haupricht also said Remembrance Inc. is working on a plan to build a military memorial park in Lucas County that would include memorials for each war. The location will be chosen at a later date from among interested communities, he said.
“That’s down the road, but something we’d like to do,” Haupricht said.

In 2008, Frankie and Kele Pallitta took their 7-month-old son, Elias, to the emergency room when they thought he was sick with the flu.
“He had flu symptoms,” Kele said. “We had the flu the week before, and when he couldn’t keep anything down we were told to go to the ER to give him fluids.”
But after a few routine tests the Pallittas were told their sick little boy didn’t have the flu; it was cancer. Within hours, Elias was rushed into surgery to try and relieve the pressure in his brain caused by the tumor.
“The surgeon came out saying everything went great and while he was talking with us he got a page., Kele said.
Elias had stopped breathing on his way back to his hospital room.

Kele Pallitta

Kele said doctors worked on Elias for a half-hour as she and her husband helplessly stood outside the room. She said time passed so slowly and eventually she could no longer stand to know the doctors were still trying to bring her baby back to life.
“Please, just let them stop,” she recalls thinking. “I consider myself fortunate. We feel like we got off easy because we didn’t watch him go through treatments. Some families watch their kids go through treatments in the hospital for years and deal with this terrible feeling for days, weeks and years.”
Shortly after Elias died, Kele became pregnant and the couple now has three children. Life got busy, but a year ago Kele said she felt a need to remember her son and had an idea.
“We wanted to be able to help other families deal with their child getting cancer in a different way. A lot of charities fund a cure, but that’s not helping the families now,” she said.
She started collecting items that families staying in a hospital with a sick child could use, simple things like snacks, journals, games, gift cards, hand sanitizers and even Kleenex.
“I wanted them to know someone was thinking about them and what they were going through,” Kele said.
The plan was to make this a family activity and periodically deliver these care bags to hospitals. But just a year after starting, that plan has blossomed into a charity, named after their late son: Elias Adin Comforting Hearts. The nonprofit organization now serves four hospitals in Ohio — Mercy Children’s Hospital, Toledo Children’s Hospital, Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus and the Cleveland Clinic. Comforting Hearts is responsible for delivering more than 150 care bags to these hospitals as well as to families out of state who have caught the Pallittas’ attention, like the Wilhides in North Carolina.
“This huge package showed up at the hospital for us, I mean huge. It was filled with gifts for our older daughter, for our baby Piper, and things like journals and pens for us,” Haleigh Wilhide said. Wilhide’s daughter Piper was diagnosed with Stage 3 neuroblastoma when she was 4 months old and the family has been in the hospital since.
Wilhide said it has been a difficult road for the family but acts of kindness like the package sent by the Pallittas and their charity created a bright spot in their world.
“More than anything, it’s all the love you are flooded with. It makes you feel better, comforted; when everything is crumbling around you it just makes you smile,” Wilhide said.
For Wilhide, it was also comforting to have the support of another mom who had a baby with cancer.
“All us moms are connected and have a bond no one else will understand,” she said. “I don’t know her, I will never meet her, but we have a special bond.”
This new charity is keeping Kele, who works full time, busy. But she is committed to making her charity stand out.
“We try to do different things and different events to focus on different groups of people so it’s not always the same people. We want it to be fun and new,” Kele said.
During the past year, Comforting Hearts hosted fundraisers like a celebrity fashion show, a scavenger hunt through Perrysburg, a 5k obstacle course race and a bachelor and bachelorette auction.
The second annual Toledo’s Most Eligible Bachelor and Bachelorette Auction will take place at 8 p.m. March 2 at The Irish Eyes Heavenly Pub, 3324 Secor Road, Toledo. There will be a cover charge and all in attendance get a chance to bid on a date with the bachelor or bachelorette of their choice.
Comforting Hearts is always looking for donations for its care bags. There is a list of items on its website, www.comfort-hearts.com. Items can be dropped off at their office, 422 Louisiana Ave., Perrysburg.

Local entrepreneur Will Lucas is the brains behind several projects — but he called his latest venture Classana, an educational resource website, “the most important thing I’ve ever done.”
Lucas, a Toledo native, soft-launched Classana on Jan. 24 and will officially debut the site Feb. 4. The website brings customized educational resources to its users.

Will Lucas. Toledo Free Press Photo by Joseph Herr

“[Classana] is an educational resource discovery engine. Our mission is to organize the world’s learning resources … whether that be books you should read, classes you should take, online courses you should take, organizations you should join, events you should go to, etc.,” Lucas said.
When users register for the free website, they answer three questions that help tailor their results: what their interests are, what experiences they have and what they want to get better at. For instance, if a user says he or she wants to learn more about cooking, an online culinary class may be suggested.
Lucas said, “There’s people creating all these fantastic online learning resources, but there’s nowhere you can go online that you can be presented with these options based particularly and specifically on your interests. There’s things happening out there that we just don’t know about, that help us get better at whatever we’re trying to accomplish.
“A lot of this stuff is already on Google, but I have to know to search for it on Google. What if I don’t know that it even exists? Classana, because it knows who I am and what I’m already interested in, it knows to present me with these things and I don’t have to go searching for them.”
The seeds for Classana were planted at the beginning of 2012 when Lucas was trying to finish his degree at the University of Toledo.

The entrepreneur was taking 19 credit hours while still trying to run his business, Creadio, which gives businesses custom radio and television stations to promote their brand in their stores. Lucas also launched TedX Toledo, which featured about 20 speakers, in September.

“One of my mentors was like, ‘You’re killing yourself trying to take this full course load and run your business. So when you graduate, what are you going to do? Give yourself a promotion?’” Lucas said.
“He said, ‘If you’re going to go to school, don’t just go for a piece of paper; go for things that actually help you with your business; get better at what you’re trying to accomplish.’ So that made a lot of sense to me. So instead of pursuing a degree, I started pursuing things that directly helped me get better at my business.”
Lucas submitted his idea for Classana to Rocket Ventures, a Northwest Ohio venture capital and entrepreneurial resource firm, in April 2012.
Blake Culver, the entrepreneur in residence who works with Classana, said Rocket Ventures helped Lucas develop the website’s business model and commercialization strategy, make financial projections and assist with database development.
“We always were enamored with the idea, but it was a matter of how it would function as an enterprise,” Culver said. “The idea is quite unique and it’s differentiated and that’s, in part, why it has appeal.”
Lucas said there is possibility of advertising on the site in the future.
He added that, “What we’ve found is creators, whether they be authors, teachers and brands, are always trying to remain ahead of the curve in what’s happening in their fields of interest. Classana is the best way to track trends in the marketplace. We believe there is value there.”
Dan Slifko, president and director of Rocket Ventures, said if more entrepreneurs like Lucas utilized resources like the venture capital firm, Northwest Ohio would benefit from the results.
“Will happens to be one of a number of highly intelligent, previously successful clients that has come forward with ideas. They understand why Rocket Ventures exists,” he added.
Spoke, a Web branding firm, worked with Lucas to brand Classana. This included designing the logo and building the front end of the site, said W. Gene Powell, president of Spoke.
The logo, an orange six-sided honeycomb, was inspired by bees, which collect things to bring back to the hive, he said.
In a way, this is what Classana and its users do, by bringing their knowledge back to the hub, Powell said
“Bees and hives and colonies became this perfect metaphor,” Powell said. He added that Spoke was excited when Lucas approached them with the idea.
“Will’s got a great track record of success and we like working with smart, successful people like that,” he said.
“As far as the actual platform or product, we’re excited because he’s really at the beginning of this societal shift of education.”
Lucas noted that most colleges are designed to help students get a diploma or degree, not necessarily take classes meant to help them get better at their specific interests.
“We need a better way to organize classes because we believe education is going to get more entrepreneurial,” Lucas said.
Lucas said Classana reflects a possible change in higher education. He referenced Apple founder Steve Jobs’ famous commencement speech at Stanford University.
Jobs, a college dropout, said, “I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.”
While he believes college is still a worthy investment, Lucas said of Jobs’ quote, “I believe that’s what the future of education looks like. Instead of us going for this special degree or diploma, we’re going to go for things that help us more efficiently pursue our passions.”
For more information, visit the web site classana.com.

Do you know which political party I belong to? If I follow a particular religion or if I’m conservative or liberal? If you know me only through these articles, I certainly hope not! Toledo Free Press publishes my stories on the 1812 era because they’re educational and hopefully entertaining, not because I editorialize about the events or people of that era in an attempt to skew your understanding of history.
A Jan. 27 Toledo Free Press letter to the editor, “Raisin context,” offered reader Martin Extejt’s opinion about my Jan. 13 piece on the Raisin River massacre (“Remember the Raisin”), implying that I was in some degree offering up an exaggerated opinion under the guise of history.
I detest political correctness. I can “handle the truth,” as the saying goes. More importantly, I suspect you can, too. Show me the raw facts and then leave me alone to draw my own conclusions. For example, am I the only one who is insulted by political gurus of both major parties who feel compelled to explain to me what I just saw with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears, in a presidential speech or any other major national event? I understood it, all by myself, Dr. Spin!
Revisionist history techniques are being employed at an alarming rate, unbeknownst to most readers. Opinion is often deceptively couched in what appears to be a factual historical narrative. It’s almost impossible to know if you’ve been fed a twisted version of the truth if you don’t take the time to do the comparative research. One 1800s historian reflected that once something is written as history, it is believed forever. What a responsibility writing history is! How many of you have taken the time to research any of the topics I’ve written about to make certain I’ve been accurate? Maybe a few of you history buffs have, but I suspect most haven’t. You don’t have the time for that, so it becomes a matter of trust.
That trust is something I have to earn and prove to you. Because I am inherently conscious of being called out for a false statement, I do my homework. Such research is not done to sway you to a political ideology, but to present the truth. My opinion has no place in my columns. I follow Sgt. Joe Friday’s advice, “Just the facts ma’am, nothing but the facts.” (Google it, youngsters!) My goal is to bring those facts to you at times with a bit of a twist and a touch of humor, but always without bias or any sugarcoating.
There were plenty of atrocities to go around in our frontier history. For decades it was a brutal tit-for-tat scenario. History isn’t necessarily balanced, fair or pretty. Really bad stuff happened. Really good stuff happened. It’s from the mouths of the men and women who were there, wherever “there” was, that I seek my information. Logically, they should be the most reliable source. You get to decide.
On the 200th anniversary of the Battle of the River Raisin, with massacres becoming a monthly event in our culture, I thought it was timely to elicit the details of this outrageous occurrence. Here, in 1813, a handful of very vicious men, who happened to be Indian, did slaughter defenseless, wounded men. That’s not propaganda, that’s a fact based on the testimony of several people who survived to tell of it. Any embellishment came later. Even Tecumseh once shot one of his own for not ceasing his attack on a defenseless American prisoner. Isn’t it self-evident that there are real men and real thugs of every race? The guys who did this, and only these guys, were real thugs.
I want to thank Martin Extejt, first for reading my stories and second for passionately decrying what he perceived to be a slam against Native Americans. But thirdly, he has inadvertently created this opportunity for me to share my approach to writing about history, and how I choose to present it to you. What happened, happened. That’s history. And that’s my opinion.
I welcome yours.

Frank Kuron is author of the War of 1812 book, “Thus Fell Tecumseh.” Email him at kuronpubs@bex.net.

The Second Amendment was written into the Constitution on Dec. 15, 1791.
This amendment seems to be interpreted differently by everyone, much like the writings of the Bible. Each person has his or her own idea of right and wrong, true meaning or hidden subtleties.
It seems to me that a group of people who left their native country to settle in a “New World,” where there was less oppression, would write something ensuring that they had the right to stand up to the people who oppressed them.
In the case of the original 13 colonies, where each one acted as a sovereign entity, they needed the Constitution to help unite them better. But the powers that be thought it wise to make sure that the type of leaders who had oppressed them prior to this time should not have the ability to do so in the future by means of their own greed and selfish agendas.
I think the right to keep and bear arms came about so that, should those in power use their influence to put the free people under their boot heel, the free people would have the legal right to defend themselves from the corruption that influence may take on.
And so it is that we all have the right to own firearms as we deem necessary to protect ourselves and our families.
I work in a business whose players spout political rhetoric as if they had researched the facts for themselves instead of simply reading a regurgitated script from the wires. What’s worse, they do it on a national level. But I digress, as that is a story for another day.
My interpretation of what I see and hear directly from the mouths of politicians is meant only for politics. It’s become an art form where looks and charisma takes center stage, while meaning and content take the backseat. So long as you yell the loudest, or add a strong curse word at the end of an expressive sentence, the crowd will cheer.
But it’s time we think for ourselves.
The people who were in charge of gun bans in the past are quick to jump back on the horse, using the tragedy in Newtown, Conn., as a reason to ride it once more.
Let’s think about all the murders on your local news. What type of weapon was used in most of those? If you don’t recall, I’ll remind you: a handgun. I know because I report on many of the stories. I see the file come through our feeds and watch the word “handgun” repeat over and over.
So why is there such a focus on these “assault weapons”?
I can only surmise that they are targeted because they look rather menacing. They look similar to what you would see in a shoot-em-up film. Quite simply, these guns are being vilified on a level for which we haven’t a name.
I would like to help debunk a myth.
There is a common term I hear emphasized quite inappropriately, so pay attention: “Semi-automatic.” Many people, including those with 10-plus years of television reporting, have no idea what this term means.
The truth: “Semi-automatic” means that every time one bullet leaves the chamber, the trigger has to be pulled to ready another. To exhaust a magazine of 15 rounds, the trigger must be pulled 15 times. This is true with any weapon that is available to the public.
“Fully automatic” refers to a gun that can be fired continuously by holding the trigger down. These type of guns have been banned in all facets of sale or transfer since 1986. Frankly, they are all but impossible for a member of the general public to attain. And completely impossible for someone to do so legally.
I have never actually seen any assault-style weapon used in any killings that have come across my news desk.
So the big question is, why are the politicians for gun control trying to ban something that, in statistical terms, is only responsible for less than 1 percent of all crime-related shootings?
My summation would be that they have to appease the people who pay for their campaigns. Because a handgun ban is a complete impossibility.
Rest assured, a gun ban will do absolutely nothing! It will stop no crimes, and give people more of a reason to feel held under the heel of a boot.
In case you were unaware, the Columbine massacre happened during the last assault weapon ban.
Chris Delcamp is a reporter and videojournalist for WNWO-TV. Email him at cdelcamp@wnwo.com.